The 7-5 Washington Huskies will play 12-1 Boise State, coach-in-exit Chris Petersen's former team, in the Las Vegas Bowl Dec. 21, and the 6-6 Washington State Cougars will play 10-2 Air Force in the Cheez-It Bowl in Phoenix Dec. 27.

A post-season Mountain West (Conference) Fest sure to thrill several people.

Meanwhile, the Pac-12 Conference, in accord with recent tradition, will be nowhere when it comes to deciding college football's national champion.

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Pete Carroll was asked a question Wednesday about whether he agreed with a national commenter who said the Seahawks seem to have more fun than any team in the NFL. Obviously, it's easy to have fun at 10-2, but the Seahawks coach has always understood a basic teaching principle that there's a direct correlation between enthusiasm and learning.

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Setting aside the matter of lush compensation, coaching big-time college football is the worst job in major sports. Among all jobs, it's a step shy of shoveling asphalt daily in a Georgia summer.

In fact, Chris Petersen is setting aside millions of dollars because coaching football is such a brutal experience. Even at his dream job at the University of Washington, where football in a big metropolitan area means, to his delight, "four million people don't even know football exists."

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Shocking all wearing purple, not to mention everyone else in college football, Chris Petersen is stepping down as University of Washington football coach, according to a statement from the school Monday morning. Athletics director Jen Cohen immediately appointed defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake to the permanent position as head coach.

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Normally sports history is written after the big game. Ever the iconoclast, Washington Huskies senior C Nick Harris decided to write history before the Apple Cup. He took out a Sharpie Thursday and, along the bottom of his game undershirt, wrote in big letters, "WE DON'T LOSE TO COUGS." He put an X through the final word.

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Costello had Abbott. Hardy had Laurel. Stimpy had Ren. Butthead had Beavis. Mrs. Doubtfire had Robin Williams.

Good comedy partnerships usually need a foil. The Apple Cup once had some of it when the Huskies' Don James was the period and the Cougars' Jim Walden was the exclamation point.

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Fans were clamoring for change. University of Washington players looked beaten down as the losses piled up. The coach tried to remain resolute as his Huskies football program tapered off, dropped five games in an uncharacteristic dip.

That aptly describes what's taking place right now in Montlake. It also applies to the 1988 season.

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This Huskies football season got away from coach Chris Petersen.

It's hard to say how or why, since media can't watch practice and the players are trained to avoid honesty in public. But the conclusion nevertheless is visible and inescapable, following Pac-12 Conference defeats to 4-6 Cal, 5-5 Stanford and 4-6 Colorado. The 20-14 loss Saturday to the Buffaloes in Boulder was a stark depiction of a team getting worse instead of better, with minimal excuses for injuries.

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On a Saturday wherein sixth-ranked Oregon fell to 5-5 Arizona State and Washington State gave up 29 points in less than 10 fourth-quarter minutes and still won, the Pac-12 Conference events on a cold, dry evening in Boulder, CO, may be little noted nor long remembered.

But that's only if you don't wear purple.

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If the Washington Huskies Huskies win Saturday at Colorado (7 p.m., ESPN) and Nov. 29 at home in the Apple Cup, both of which they will be favored to do, they will finish 8-4 overall and 5-4 in the Pac-12 Conference. They can make the argument they are the third-best team, since they beat USC, the only other contender for the auspicious claim of "We're No. 3."

Granted, given the league-wide mediocrity beyond Oregon and Utah, it's a little like being designated the world's tallest Corgi. Coaches like to call such a season "well-balanced," but we all know better, mm-kay?

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On a long, slow slide into ordinariness, the Huskies on defense worked up a glimpse for a brighter future Friday night in Corvallis. On offense, however, Washington looked as if the Cyler Miles era had fallen out of the back of a truck into full view again.

Because Oregon State (4-5, 3-3) was unexpectedly rancid, it was hard to know what to make of the of the 19-7 win (box), except that it was UW's eighth straight in the series with the Beavers, and coach Chris Petersen set back a decade or two the career of his former assistant, Beavers coach Jonathan Smith.

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Last time the Washington Huskies met Utah 11 months ago, they won the Pac-12 championship, 10-3, without benefit of an offensive touchdown. So if the Huskies, aided by the presence of highly regarded QB Jacob Eason, knew early Saturday morning ahead of the rematch that they were about to put up 28 points and gain 369 yards against the still-formidable Utes defense, they would have demanded to know where to sign up for that worthy feat.

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It's as if the NCAA Tuesday leaped away from the buggy, slapped the horse on the hindquarters and jumped into a 1965 Mustang convertible.

How long it will take for the reform-resistant cartel to buy the 2020 Tesla remains unknown. But at least the business of college sports has made it to pavement, and reaching the 21st century will happen more quickly.

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Given Washington's bumpy, 2-2 start to its Pac-12 Conference play, being ahead 28-14 at home against the 12th-ranked Oregon Ducks early in the third quarter Saturday had to make the Huskies feel large and in charge.

Which, of course, turned out to be the problem.

These 2019 Huskies have not earned the right to cockiness in a conference game. They are a middling team in a fairly soft Power 5 outfit, and can't get away with easing against the league's one good team.

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In the middle of the night in Tucson the past Saturday, the Washington Huskies apparently woke up screaming. Well, maybe not screaming, but mad. Or startled. Or disturbed. Maybe just perturbed.

Whatever the calibration, it was halftime against the Arizona Wildcats, who were ahead, 17-13. The Huskies just completed a sixth consecutive quarter of football that bordered on the comatose. Since they ended up winning 51-27, clearly something hysterical, spiritual or pharmaceutical happened in the intermission locker room.

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After six consecutive quarters of brutal college football, the Washington Huskies heard the giant sucking sound of a season going down the drain. Or, it could have been the Oregon Ducks snorting heavily. Whatever the source of the early audio horror on a warm Saturday night in Tucson against the University of Arizona, a moment was at hand.

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Based on the Monday night game in which the San Francisco 49ers gashed the Browns for 275 yards rushing in a 31-3 triumph, here's a brilliantly conceived game plan for the Seahawks game in Cleveland Sunday: Give the ball 40 times to Chris Carson and his fellow running backs, leaving about 10 pass attempts for Russell Wilson.

The Seahawks would win, by about 41-17. Pete Carroll, you can thank me later.

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Halfway through the regular season, the Washington Huskies offense is sixth in points per game in the Pac-12 Conference (34), eighth in yards per pass attempt (8.0), ninth in total passing yards (244.7), and 10th in third-down conversions (40 percent).

If someone had told any discerning Huskies fan in August that those would be the mid-season numbers, he or she likely would have said, "How did Jake Browning get a fifth year of eligibility?"

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And you thought the Washington Huskies' annual dork game was the 20-19 home loss to Cal, a contest that at least had the nearly three-hour weather delay that might be twisted, by a guy with huge forearms, into some some sort of pathetic excuse.

Turns out the dork game was Saturday night in Palo Alto. Unless, of course, this is a double-dork season.

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News Monday that the four California schools in the Pac-12 Conference were given legal permission to allow their football players in the future to receive outside income, which is not allowed for Washington players, did not muss a single one of coach Chris Petersen tightly coiffed hairs.

He has a football game to win Saturday, fools.

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